Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 14:38:10 GMT
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	<title>The Bookshelf</title>
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<h1> Virtually my bookshelf </h1>

<img src=books.gif>

<hr>

<h2> Fiction </h2>

<h3> <A HREF="ftp://ftp.wwnorton.com/pub/Trade/POBrian">Patrick O'Brian</A> </h3>

<p>
Patrick O'Brian has spent over 20 years writing a series of novels about the
adventures of a Royal Navy captain and his ship's surgeon in the Napoleonic
Wars. For a combination of adventure stories and effortless prose, they
can't be beat. If you are interested, I recommend starting with the first
volume in the series, <i> Master and Commander. </i>

<hr>

<h2> Non-fiction </h2>

<h3> Anchee Min </h3>

<p>
Anchee Min's autobiographical work <i> Red Azalea </i> describes her
youth in China during the Cultural Revolution. The story begins as
a straightforward story of being sent to a collective farm, but then
it takes enough plot twists to satisy Dickens. Min's style is very
direct without much reflection on why things happened, but that directness
gives the plot twists more impact and creates an urgent rhythm.

<h3> John McPhee </h3>

<p> 
The journalist John McPhee displays a penchant for writing about geology
and people's interactions with their physical environment. In <i> The
Control of Nature </i> he writes about Icelanders trying to redirect
lava flows with firehoses and bulldozers, Los Angelenos catching mudslides
in large basins and the Army corps of engineers attempting to prevent
the Mississippi river from creating a new channel to the sea.
<i> Coming into the Country </i> offers three stories on Alaska. One describes a 
river trip through national park lands, one is about the search for a new state
capital site, and the third describes a community deep in the Alaskan bush.
<i> La Place de la Concorde Suisse </i> takes a look at the Swiss style
of heavily armed neutrality. It has plenty of annecdotes about how various
bridges are rigged with explosive charges, etc. but the best parts are about
the young soldiers finding good places to eat and drink while they are
supposed to be working. In <i>The Curve of Binding Energy</i>,
McPhee interviews a scientist who began his career designing nuclear weapons
at Los Alamos and after finding out how easy it is to build one, started to
work on safeguards to prevent nuclear fuel from being used to make bombs.
Last and least, <i>Oranges</i> decribes the citrus industry, circa 1966.
The good stories are rather thinly spread through the book.

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